Climate Change and Our Wacky Food System Mending the Earth, LPTS September 5

1
Climate Change and Our Wacky Food System Mending
the Earth, LPTSSeptember 5

• Andrew Kang Bartlett
• Associate for National Hunger ConcernsPresbyteria
  n Hunger Program
• PC(USA)

2
Food climate change

• Greatest impact on global warming
• Livestock alone 18 of CO2
• Tops transportation

3
(No Transcript)
4
Shroud of academic legitimacy

• UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
  multi-year study Livestocks Long Shadow
• Research by David Pimentel, Cornell University

5
Agricultures Reach

• Largest industry, 1.3 billion people
• Producing 1.3 - 1.7 trillion worth of goods each
  year

6
Agricultures Reach

• Food system - 10-20 of global energy
• Post-production accounts for 80-90

7
Agricultures Reach

• Agriculture 40 of the planets bio-capacity
• Largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem
  functions
• Biggest opportunity

8
Why it matters to people

• Half planets population rural
• 1 billion small-scale farming - little energy or
  off-farm inputs.
• Pushed off the road by industrial food system
  into ditch of poverty.

9
Why to Christians

• Jesus instructed us to love our neighbor as
  ourselves. Harm to the earth brings harm to
  people, critters and eco-systems, and we are
  responsible for each others well being. We are
  stewards of Gods Creation.

10
Why to Christians

• God requires that we deal justly with one
  another. Environmental harm falls most heavily on
  the poor, and will fall even more heavily on
  those yet to be born.

11
Why else it matters?

• Petroleum-intensive
• Export focus -gt overproduction
• Environmental damage
• Fatally unhealthy (lt71 billion per year)

12
Industrial food system is what it is

• Great quantities of food
• Fewer farmers
• More time, more conveniences
• Cheap wheat, corn, rice, soybeans and cheap cocoa
  puffs and soda!

13
IFS is unsustainable

• Farming practices mine precious topsoil
• Long shipping distances and intensive energy use
  ? pollution and climate change

14
I wonder how many calories it took to produce
and ship this banana to me
15
IFS is unsustainable

• Degrades and destroys genetic and biological
  diversity

• Poisons biosphere (including us) with planets
  most lethal toxins

16
My beef with beef

• Our love of meat is a recipe for disaster.

17
Cows can be cute
but not when knee deep in manure
Beef as petroleum by-product
18
(No Transcript)
19
Beefpetroleum by-product

• Gas, diesel and electricity to
• Grow, harvest and process the feed
• Manufacture and apply fertilizers and pesticides

20
Beefpetroleum by-product

• Gas, diesel and electricity to
• Maintain and transport animals to feedlots, then
  to meatpacking plants
• Process and package the meat

21
Beefpetroleum by-product

• Gas, diesel and electricity to
• Transport in refrigerated trucks to distribution
  centers, then to stores
• You transport it home, refrigerate or freeze,
  cook (AC runs higher to offset hot kitchen) -
  maybe you refrigerate the left-overs

22

• More than 50 of all grain in the U.S. and 40
  worldwide goes to feed livestock

Grain needed to feed every one of the people on
Earth who dies of hunger and hunger-caused
disease annually 12 million tons Amount people
in the U.S. would have to reduce their beef
consumption to save 12 millions tons of grain
10 percent
23
Grain H2O to Beef

• 10 to 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of
  beef
• Water

24
Energy to Protein Ratios

• Beef541
• Pork171
• Milk protein141
• Turkey131
• Chicken41

David Pimentel (Cornell U.) estimates 800 million
people could be fed with the grain consumed by
livestock in the U.S.
25
The Giant Footprint of Livestock
26
The Giant Footprint of Livestock

• By 2050, global production milk from 580 to 1,043
  million tons
• Meat to double (to 465 million tons)

27
Livestocks Footprint

• Grazing - 26 of planets land
• (of ice-free terrestrial surface of the
  planet)
• Feedcrop - 33 of arable land (7)
• Livestock production - 70 of all agricultural
  land or 30 of land surface of the planet

28

• Grazing - 26 of all land
• (of ice-free terrestrial surface of the
  planet)
• Feed - 33 of arable land

29
Livestocks Footprint

• WATER 8 of global human water use (mostly for
  irrigation)

• Largest source of water pollution dead zones,
  coral reef degradation, human health problems,
  antibiotic resistance

30
Water Climate Detour
Estimated of barrels of oil used to make the
bottled-water containers sold in the U.S. last
year?
16,000,000
31
Water Climate Detour
Every five minutes, U.S. consumers use 2 million
plastic beverage containers.
32
Livestocks Footprint

• Livestock responsible for
• 55 of erosion and sediment
• 37 of pesticide use
• 50 of antibiotics
• 1/3 or nitrogen and phosphorus into freshwater

33
Livestocks Footprint

• Biodiversity Livestock using 30 of land
  pre-empts what was wildlife habitat

• Species loss at
• 50500 times background rates found in the fossil
  records

34
Livestocks Footprint

• May be leading player in reduction of
  biodiversity (deforestation, land degradation,
  pollution, climate change, overfishing,
  sedimentation of coastal areas, facilitation of
  invasions of alien species)

35
Livestocks Footprint

• CLIMATE 18 of greenhouse gas emissions in CO2
  equivalent
• Higher share than transport
• One less hamburger per week
• switching from an SUV to hybrid

36
Industrial Food System not just meat

• All food in IFS depends on petroleum
• 16-20 of all energy consumed in the U.S.
• Distance between field and plate The average
  food item consumed in the U.S. travels 1,500 miles

37
Chicago comparison of Food Miles
IFS
Local

• Terminal MarketAverages
• Apples 1,555 miles
• Tomatoes 1,369 miles
• Grapes 2,143 miles
• Beans 766 miles
• Peaches 1,674 miles
• Winter Squash 781 miles
• Greens 889 miles
• Lettuce 2,055 miles

• Ferry Plaza Farm Market Averages
• Apples 105 miles
• Tomatoes 117 miles
• Grapes 151 miles
• Beans 101 miles
• Peaches 184 miles
• Winter Squash 98 miles
• Greens 99 miles
• Lettuce 102 miles

38
Great sucking sound

• In a single year, in U.S., tractor-trailers (ave.
  5.9 miles per gallon) traveled 170 billion miles,
  and used 42.5 billion gallons of diesel fuel, to
  transport food.

39
Global climate impact

• English researchers compared two traditional
  Sunday meals one with imported ingredients, one
  with locally grown ingredients.
• Imported meal - 650 times the amount of CO2 as
  the local meal, due to petroleum-intensive food
  transport.

40
True Cost Accounting

• IFS direct subsidies 12 billion
• IFS indirect subsidies water, fossil fuels,
  highway system, subsidized feed, health care

41
How are Christians and others working to
address this depraved system?

• Nurturing alternatives
• building local food economies
• creating a policy climate that allows sustainable
  food systems to grow

42
Nurturing alternatives strengthening local food
economies

• Starts with us
• Voting for world we want with our dollars

43
Nurturing alternatives building local food
economies

• Buy local regional items where you shop
  organic an added plus.
• Get to know the produce manager and request local
  food.

44

• Shift to the right on the
• Food Shopping Continuum
• Megastore (e.g. Costco or Wal-Mart) ?
  Supermarket
• Natural Marketplaces (e.g. Wild Oats)
• Buying Club / Food Co-op
• ? Non-Chain Grocery Store
• Local Co-op ? Farmers Market
• ? CSA ? Community or Home Garden

45
Nurturing alternatives strengthening local food
economies

• Support sustainable agriculture, community food
  policy work, urban gardening, Community Supported
  Agriculture (CSA), food systems education.
• Grants for wind energy development and methane
  energy generation

46
Nurturing alternatives by creating the policy
climate

• Encourage institutional purchasing policies to
  give preference to locally-produced items, such
  as the farm-to-cafeteria programs that are
  successfully sprouting up in schools around the
  U.S.

47
Nurturing alternatives by creating the policy
climate

• Strengthen local regional food economies based
  on sustainable agriculture with local food
  councils
• Collaboration (ecumenical and beyond)!
  Presbyterians for Restoring Creation, Community
  Food Security Coalition, National Family Farm
  Coalition, Church World Service, Oxfam America,
  Sierra Club, National Campaign for Sustainable
  Agriculture, National Catholic Rural Life
  Conference, Rural Coalition, state and local
  organizations

48
Nurturing alternatives by creating the policy
climate

• Farm Bill Reform in 2007

www.foodbattle.org
49
Nurturing alternatives by creating the policy
climate

• Shift assistance from industrial ag to small
  medium family farms
• Reward conservation set-aside efforts

50
Nurturing alternatives by creating the policy
climate

• Prevent further concentration in the food
  industry
• Limit industry manipulation of agriculture
  (Competition Title in FB)

51
Nurturing alternatives through education and
advocacy

• Electric Stewardship Project www.pcusa.org/energy
  promotes energy audits and energy-saving
  conservation in church buildings and in homes.
• PHP works with PRC to help educate about
  connections between our food/farm policies and
  climate change. www.pcusa.org/hunger
  Presbyterian Global Eco-Justice E-Newsletter
• Shaping a betterfarmbill.org
• Get Mitch! . . . (on our side)

52
What would Jesus eat?
Convert friends and family to eat lower on the
food chain
53
pcusa.org/hunger
myfootprint.org
betterfarmbill.org
foodandfaithblog.org
54
Yes, but how do I change? How on earth do we
change?
55
From Apocalypse to Genesis Rev. Dr. Janet
Parker (www.nccecojustice.org) referring to the
eco-apocalyptic challenge the human race faces
Speth and many other scientists and theologians
are speaking a language that sounds off-key to
our modern ears.  Its a language that biblical
prophets like Ezekiel and John of Patmos would
recognize, however.  It is the language of
apocalypsethe imagery of the end times and the
mysteries of God.  The environmental challenges
that face us are beginning to look apocalyptic,
except now the apocalypse is not a fantasy of
fundamentalists, or the stuff of science fiction,
but the edge of an abyss that clear-eyed
scientists peer over and tremble at.  And the
threats we face are not orchestrated by God but
self-inflicted.
56
Its hard to talk about these things, but we have
to break the silence, especially within the
churches, because here, above all else, we must
speak the truth.  As Daniel Maguire, a Catholic
theologian, has said bluntly, If current trends
continue, we will not If religion does not
speak to this, it is an obsolete distraction. 
And so we need to speak about it, and we need to
weep about it, because its only when we allow
ourselves to actually feel what is going on that
we will have the capacity to change it.  As one
ecofeminist theologian has said, the capacity to
weep and then do something is worth everything.
This is the purpose of apocalyptic literature in
the Bible and the purpose of the eco-apocalyptic
warnings of scientists and environmentalistsnot
to paralyze us with fear, but to spur us to act,
and even, to invest us with hope. 
57
Ezekiel, writing to exiles, whose homeland had
been destroyed, offered a vision of a new daya
dream of the time when they would return to their
land and dwell in peace, when the land itself
would be restored from its former desolation and
bloom as if it were the garden of Eden.  And the
people who would dwell there would be different
than the people who went into exile, because they
would be transformed by their experience.  They
will return, but not as the same people, for we
are told that God has cleansed them from their
idols and so, a new heart I will give you, and
a new spirit I will put within you and I will
remove from your body the heart of stone, and
give you a heart of flesh. 
58
(No Transcript)